“Yet she is younger than I am,” said Regina.
“Oh, years—they have nothing to do with the case. You have been a happy woman, a prosperous woman, a healthy woman; there has been nothing in your life to seam your face with lines and generally stamp you with all the worry that is too plainly visible on poor Mrs. Chamberlain’s features. Well, here we are, and here is Julia skipping across the road.”
As the words left his lips a slim young figure in white emerged from the rustic gate that gave entrance and egress to the house of Marksby. They stood until Julia came running across the road.
“Have you two dear things been out for an airing?” she exclaimed as she reached the foot-path.
“No, only to the post-box,” said Regina.
“Mother dear,” said Julia, “you look exactly as if you were walking about in your nightgown—a very voluminous and sublimated nightgown, but a nightgown all the same.”
For a moment Regina was too dashed to speak. The thought came fluttering through her mind, and seemed to fall to the floor of her heart with a great crash, that surely it was hopeless for her ever to try to win back Alfred from the hussy by personal means. Evidently she was hopelessly out of it as regards all questions of dress and the toilette.
“Of course,” she hastened to reply, for she did not wish Julia to think that she was annoyed by her criticism, “it really is a bedroom garment. I put it on because I was so hot to-day, and in this little country sort of place I thought going to the post in it would not matter, and—we—we did not meet anyone, did we, Alfred?”
“It would not have mattered if you had,” said Julia; “what you wear is a matter for your own consideration. But it does look like a nightgown.”